Pandemic numbers jump for Manitoba First Nations
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 30/04/2021 (1800 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
First Nations officials are urging Indigenous Manitobans to get vaccinated as more infectious COVID-19 variants surge on and off reserves.
“The average age of deaths is going down for First Nations people,” Dr. Marcia Anderson said Friday, the same week two First Nations people in their 20s died from COVID-19.
The First Nations Pandemic Response Co-ordination Team reported a five-fold increase in variant cases in just 10 days.
On April 20, 14 people living on reserves were infected with a variant; the number jumped to 92 by April 30.
Off-reserve, variant cases spiked from 45 to 231 in Manitoba.
Both are concerning, as First Nations residents are more likely to live in cramped housing and have weaker immune systems due to decades of inequities.
The pandemic team is working toward giving the required two Moderna vaccine shots before Canada Day to 50,000 people, all of whom either live on reserves or are non-First Nations people living in the most remote corners of the province.
This week, the team rolled out first Moderna doses to all 63 reserves and has started shipments for second shots.
As of Friday, 39 per cent of First Nations people in Manitoba, including those living off-reserve, have received a first COVID-19 vaccine dose; however, officials noted First Nations across the province still need to step up for vaccines to lower the spread of more contagious variants.
Few Pfizer-BioNTech doses were administered to First Nations people in the past week, which suggests Winnipeggers are not showing up to the downtown supersite, despite First Nations being eligible from age 30 and up, Anderson said.
Melanie MacKinnon, a nurse overseeing the pandemic team, said First Nations need to respect public health rules while those vaccines get into arms to avoid more outbreaks that strain the health system.
“This is a critical time for all of us — if we want any semblance of a summer, or gathering with our families again — to go down to one household, or no visitors,” she said, adding Winnipeg clinics tailored towards First Nations are only meant for people who meet the criteria.
First Nations people without status qualify for these sites and officials are supposed to screen out those pretending to be First Nations, though it remains unclear how this process works.
“We respectfully ask that those clinics be utilized by the communities they’re intended to serve,” MacKinnon said.
dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca